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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be embarrassed about mowing the lawn?

252 replies

Folicky · 15/08/2019 05:52

Or maybe not unreasonable, but rather am I being neurotic in being embarrassed about mowing my own lawn?

I’m a single parent. I used to have a large front & rear garden and paid to have it mowed. I’m moved to a house on a smaller plot and it is definitely feasible that I mow the lawn. The only thing is, I think it advertises the fact that we’re without a geezer. And while I live semi-rurally, there are a little knot of houses around me, so others could see me doing it and I’m likely to be doing it at times when other people are around (evening or weekends) as I work regular full time hours. Maybe, I’m being a bit sensitive about it because my new & closest neighbours are being very boundaried / dick-ish if I ask for advice about anything eg whats’ the best gp surgery in the locality? Do you need BT and a satellite dish to get a good signal (it’s rural)?, etc. They seem to see that asking for advice as a sign that I’m a bottomless pit of requests when really they’ve been questions about quite discrete areas of life. I think they must have had a bad experience in the past. Somewhere in my psyche I think they’ll see me pushing a lawnmower in my garden as a request for help (it isn’t, I don’t want them or him in my garden) and it will feel awkward. I also don’t want to be adopting a stance of placating my new neighbours when they’re probably a bit difficult. That wouldn’t feel good to me, I don’t think.

Any other dude-less (for the moment) mothers feel this way?

Any solutions? From emboldening words to suggestions about early morning mowing, and advice welcome. Thanks.

OP posts:
Weedinosaurus · 15/08/2019 10:15

Bold fail 🙄

verticality · 15/08/2019 10:18

"For all of us who do the grass ( because I have already said I do) and with partners; imagine your partner got sent to prison. Your neighbours already know you cut the lawn so that’s not the problem. But there you are having to cut the lawn alone because your other half can’t. And they are all reminded that he is inside."

If I already do the grass all the time, it is a sight to which these sexists will have become accustomed. There will therefore be no 'shock of male absence' when I appear to do it yet again. It will be routine and normal to everyone.

Your post is really, really illogical. Confused

Itstheprinciple · 15/08/2019 10:20

I am married and I mow the lawn. Well, 8 don't any more as we pay someone to do it now as it was just becoming a bone of contention but, for several years, I did the majority of gardening besides some heavy digging or lifting like when we redid the patio. No one has ever offered to help me! People just walk past and say hi and we all go about our day.

highheelsandbobblehats · 15/08/2019 10:20

Er, I mow our law because it annoys me faster than it does my husband. In fact, I'm about to go out there and do it because he was going to and now it's a fucking jungle.

TheHodgeoftheHedge · 15/08/2019 10:21

Did I fall down a wormhole and wake up in the previous century?

TheJoxter · 15/08/2019 10:22

The main thing that will make the neighbours realise there’s no man in your house will be the lack of man in your house!

BenWillbondsPants · 15/08/2019 10:24

Och dinnae be daft lassie, mow your own lawn! Who cares if there's a man in your house?

SoyDora · 15/08/2019 10:25

Mowing a loud and obvious job that attracts attention, thereby highlighting the fact that there is no one else to do it, to her miserable neighbours

No. As many women already mow their own lawn, despite there being a ‘dude’ in the house, all it highlights is that a woman is mowing the lawn. Which is normal.

OhioOhioOhio · 15/08/2019 10:29

The longer you leave the grass the worse it gets. Get on with it.

Nothingcomesforfree · 15/08/2019 10:29

Bluntness100 Of course I’ve read the thread and the point mowing the lawn is not about being a man or woman...it’s about being alone and drawing attention to that fact..

I didn’t think people gave a stuff about me being a single parent. I worked before, during and after pregnancy had nice normal friends and was indistinguishable from coupled up mums.
It was only after a year that one of my new neighbours commented on my “affair”. Apparently she had been told I was a single parent as a result of an affair with my boss. Complete fiction, from goodness knows where. Every time I was out mowing my lawn I felt it just reminded my neighbours of me ( and their wrong information).

SoyDora · 15/08/2019 10:32

But mowing the lawn would only be seen as drawing attention to the fact that you’re a single mum if you believe that mowing the lawn is a mans job, and a woman would only do it if there was no man around. Which isn’t the case. That’s like saying driving a car alone draws attention to the fact that you have no man to do it for you.

howdyalikemenow · 15/08/2019 10:33

My god I'm a single parent and mow my lawn and it's never even occurred to me to worry that because of this, people will assume I'm a poor helpless female hoping some white knight will step in and resuevme!

Ffs. It's a bizarre thought process. Now the lawn. Don't mow the lawn. Pay someone else to mow the lawn. No-one dates bout your man-free status!!!

howdyalikemenow · 15/08/2019 10:34

*rescue me

pangolina · 15/08/2019 10:34

I do most of the lawn mowing and I live with a man. Just mow it. Most people aren't that interested in other people's lives. I really doubt they'll care.

Nothingcomesforfree · 15/08/2019 10:36

And actually the other posters who have sort of understood the Ops point have been single parents too.
How is coming in as a woman in a couple who mows the lawn equivalent?

Toothproblems · 15/08/2019 10:36

İ mow ours...? No one's ever suggested it is DHs responsibility. But he does it sometimes too

plominoagain · 15/08/2019 10:39

Dear God , it’s suddenly 1953 .

I not only mow our lawn , cos if DH tries he cuts it so low he rips it out by the roots , but I also drive the tractor too . God only knows what our neighbours must think ...

verticality · 15/08/2019 10:40

"Bluntness100 Of course I’ve read the thread and the point mowing the lawn is not about being a man or woman...it’s about being alone and drawing attention to that fact.."

How, exactly, do you propose that people mow the lawn together? Should I shackle my husband to me with manacles and parade him up and down while loudly commenting "LOOK, THERE ARE TWO ADULTS HERE?" Should we buy two lawnmowers and do it together, in case - heaven forbid! - someone thinks we are a one-parent household?

Honestly, I highly doubt the OP's neighbours are that interested in her life. So far, instead of showing any kind of curiosity, their 'crime' has actually been their boundedness towards here - they have not been that interested in answering her questions, and have not been that forthcoming. They are precisely NOT involving themselves in her business.

SoyDora · 15/08/2019 10:41

I have to say I have never once looked at which of my neighbours is mowing the lawn and made any sort of judgement on their lives on the back of it.
People just aren’t as interested in other people’s lives as other people seem to think they are.

lisbonholiday · 15/08/2019 10:44

I am "with dude" as you might put it OP and we still pay a "geezer" to mow our lawn. I don't think it means anything apart from the fact you don't want to do it yourself.

ptumbi · 15/08/2019 10:47

Dude?
Geezer?

Are you an American from the 50s or a Cockney from the 50s? FFS, the word MAN is smaller.

DP does my lawn because he has a big petrol machine, and he likes playing with his big petrol machine. I'm going to get a small girly one as well Hmm for the days he doesn't want to go playing with the big petrol machine.

PinkCrayon · 15/08/2019 10:47

I always mow my lawn both front and back dh never does.

I enjoy it.

MamaGee09 · 15/08/2019 10:48

You are overthinking this situation. I mow the lawn as dh hates doing it, anyway I do it’s better! I wasn’t aware that cutting the grass was a mans job.

My mum is always out in her garden , my dad died when I was 4 and my mums love of the garden is still there, even at 70.

Lovemenorca · 15/08/2019 10:48

Single parent here
If you can afford it - just pay someone to do it.

I throw money at everything I can to make my (and my children’s) lives easy and enjoyable as poss

Bluntness100 · 15/08/2019 10:50

"Bluntness100 Of course I’ve read the thread and the point mowing the lawn is not about being a man or woman...it’s about being alone and drawing attention to that fact

How exactly does mowing the lawn draw attention to the fact you're alone? Any more than putting your bins out or doing anything else in the garden?

Your post seems to indicate women only mow the lawn if they don't have a man to do it for them, or when they do it the man is out there with them. Which is beyond bat shit.